Chapter 15: Power Play
A/N- Took me long enough, and it didn't even turn out all that well... writer's block and illness do not mix. Sorry the game's so short but it wasn't the point of this chapter anyway. Charlie's POV
*****
We arrive in the Blake locker room half an hour early. It's all part of Ken and Russ's Master Plan.
"All right... got the tape?"
"Right here."
"Lucky the floor's this color, they won't even be able to see it."
"Should we warn Coach about it?"
"Nah, he doesn't come in this way. Gimme the marker."
Russ takes the black marker Ken offers and tapes it to the end of the door. Said door is then opened as wide as it goes, and the result is a black semicircle drawn on the floor. Ken explained the reasoning behind this earlier, we don't want the door getting stuck shut. "Very nice," I grin.
They look over their masterpiece and nod in agreement, then break out the duct tape. "How wide do you suppose we should make the trap?" Ken inquires, laying one line of doubled-up tape along the edge of the line.
"Wide as you want, Kenny," Russ grins. "Try three feet or so... hey, what're you all doin' just standing there! Come help us!"
The rest of the Ducks do as we're ordered. In what seems like a very short time, we've got a three-foot barrier of duct tape all around the door. It leaves a few of the lockers unusable but hey! This locker room was designed for bigger teams.
"It does blend in pretty well," Connie observes.
"Yeah," Luis agrees. "They'll never know what hit 'em."
We exchange high-fives, then go out on the ice.
*****
Duluth County High, the Fighting Wolverines. Coach Bombay tells us that Eden Hall's called them the Fighting Tangerines since he went here. Tangerines or no Tangerines, Duluth is good. Very good.
Of course they are, this is the damn championships. They have to be good.
We take the ice. All of Blake seems to be here, and they're booing us. And cheering for the Tangerines. That's okay, we expected as much. We don't need fans. This game isn't even about Duluth, we could care less about them. We're just gonna show up the Hawks. Yet again. What better way than taking the championship they think they deserve, right on their home ice?
I take the faceoff. Duluth's center is built like a truck, but... it doesn't bother me. Size isn't everything in hockey. I'm better than him.
He's overconfident too, if he'd been on his guard I never would've been able to smash into him and get him off balance like I did. I take the puck and fire it over to Luis, who gives it to Banks and runs into the boards. Banks passes it back to me, but a Tangerine steals it.
Portman checks him and gets called for charging. The entire Ducks bench is up, yelling and wondering what the hell the refs are smoking, but...
That's okay, they don't get anywhere.
The whole first period goes like that. Refs call stupid penalty, Ducks kill the power play, refs call another stupid penalty. If we were anywhere but on Hawk ice we'd be losing badly. But no, we're too motivated in this rink.
The Hawks would be furious to know that they're actually helping us win.
Second period, more of the same. Duluth finally scored, and I got an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for yelling "Dammit!" after the fact. The whole team's willing to bet anything they've been bribed. Typical Hawk trick. They used to do that, Banks told us. Why would they have stopped now?
In the penalty box I look around the stands, seeking out the ones responsible for this mess. Solely responsible. I doubt that Duluth knows a thing about it. It can't be traced back to the Hawks if they're the only ones who know it. Not that they couldn't pay anyone who cared to shut up.
God, how pathetic those preps are. Then again, Eden Hall's just as preppy.
We tie the game with a minute left in the second period. Ken checks the tape before we leave the locker room for the third. "Looks good," he confirms. "Now let's go peel some Tangerines."
But the game's hard, and we're getting tired. We're starting to actually believe we might lose. But we can't lose!
Not here. Not now.
Luis gets called for boarding. I get the puck, fire it up to Guy, and race up the ice after him. Ken and Averman are on our tails.
Guy fakes, passes it to me. I fake, pass it to Ken. Ken fakes, and the Duluth players gang up on Averman, anticipating a pass. Ken shoots.
We're up one, but it's not going to stay that way, not the way we're playing. We need more motivation... I glance up at where I found the Hawks, expecting to see their smirking faces for reinforcement.
They're gone.
"Guys, the saboteurs are on the job," I announce. Are they really? Maybe they just went to the snack bar. Who knows. Who cares? It's a rallying point. Even with the trap set, and hoping they'll get stuck in it, the news that they really are going to wreck our locker room (their locker room? Oh well) has the team furious.
And with that comes a new wind. We don't manage to score again, but they don't even get another shot off.
Our celebration on the ice is short-lived, though. Coach comes storming out of the locker room and motions for us all to follow him, so we leave the Eden Hall fans who came along and go with him to see the results of our trap.
*****
Adam's POV
It's even better than we expected. Not only are McGill, Preston, and Larson all stuck to the tape just by walking in, everyone else is stuck from trying to help them get un-stuck.
I count them, quickly. Preston, Ser, McGill, King, Herek, Fanger, Larson, Wise, Stevens, and Stickler. Ten out of 14's not bad. And I know where Brown is, he was older than the rest of us. He's playing for the Eden Hall Varsity.
I'm so lost in Hawk-reminiscing that I miss Coach's lecture, which is probably just as well. I snap out of it in time to hear "So they shouldn't have been pokin' around in our stuff."
That doesn't go over well. Jesse gets a lecture about this being their rink, then Coach storms off.
McGill glares at us. "It's past midnight. We know you Ducks aren't going home at this hour." For once in his life, he's right, coach already told us we're going to a hotel for the night. "You'll meet us at three a.m. on the street puck court. We're gonna get you for this." And with that, the Hawks slip out of their shoes and stalk out.
*****
"Think we should take our hockey gear?"
"They won't want a game."
"Maybe we should still take our hockey gear."
"At least the sticks."
"And the gloves."
"Gloves?"
"What's stick, gloves, shirt without gloves?"
"True, true."
"I'm taking some sharp pointy objects."
"Now now, be gentle, don't want to make them cry."
"We don't?"
"I think we do."
"And you're right."
"What do we do if Coach catches us?"
"You think he'll give us a chance to do anything?"
"We tell him we were invited."
"We should wear our jerseys."
"Too bad we don't have our old ones."
I sigh and quietly bash myself in the head with my sketchbook. We've been having this conversation or something close to it, it's rather circular, for the last half hour. Obviously I'm not the only one getting annoyed, Dwayne's already left and Guy is edging towards the door.
Ten minutes until we need to leave for the showdown with the Hawks.
Coach has been confused that we haven't been partying over our win as much as he expected. We will party. But it's not a win until we've beat the Hawks, too.
Someone knocks on the door. Most of us dive out of sight in an instant, expecting Coach to come in and ask what we're doing that's making so much noise. It's just Dwayne, and we're all relieved. He tells us that Coach is sound asleep and if we want to leave, we should probably do it now.
I never did figure out why Ken and Russ always give Cowboy the scouting duty, but if it works...
*****
It's a good thing we left so early, it takes us fifteen minutes to find the court. The Hawks aren't here yet, not that we could've expected them to show early... if at all. The general opinion is that they expected us to refuse and won't really come.
I know better.
But when we've been out waiting for fifteen more minutes, I'm starting to wonder. "They chickened out," Portman announces. "Come on, let's go."
The team agrees, and the Hawks choose that moment to appear.
"You're late," Charlie announces.
Larson sneers. "We had important things to do."
The Hawks form a circle around us. Why didn't we know to spread out more? "You brought your stuff," McGill observes. "Why'd you bother?"
"Told you they didn't want a game," Averman mutters.
They're being more cautious than I expected, but the reasoning there is obvious. The Bash Brothers. They remember dealing with Fulton, why would they want to take them both on? But they knew they wuold be with us, they're on the team and all... so why did they tell us to come here in the first place?
"You Ducks took our championship," Preston sneers. "Bet you're real proud of yourselves."
Portman gets in his face. "Yeah, we are. Got a problem with that?"
Scared or not, the stalemate's broken. Hawks and Ducks go at it all over the court until Jesse and I find ourselves face to face with Larson. For a little while, I'd thought maybe Larson wasn't so bad... but, wishful thinking. I happily join in the pounding.
In the confusion, I still manage to notice something's wrong. (Well... something else.) It comes to me soon enough. Where's Herek? Probably trying to cause us trouble...
As if to underscore that thought, we hear a whistle. (a whistle? Why's he got that infernal thing out here in the middle of the night?) Coach is striding towards us, Herek in tow, and he does not look pleased.
*****
"This is the second time you've been caught out past curfew!" Coach yells, sounding frustrated beyond belief. The Hawks snicker. "And you!" he roars at them. "Horrible sportsmanship, your coach won't like this one bit!"
That shuts them up. What they need is for their coach to find out about what sore losers they are. They've already been kicked off one team, after all... things are not looking good for them as far as their hockey careers are concerned.
We quietly await our sentence, ready for anything. After all, the Hawks are in trouble too (and boy did they all get a beating before we got caught), we won our game, life is good, who care if we get in a little trouble? But for once, it seems Coach isn't in the mood for discipline. "Ducks, get to bed and stay there. Bears... just go."
We go. They go. Coach goes, and I expect he's looking for some sort of medication. He did that the last time he found out about the team causing problems, too. That really makes him pretty vulnerable. Maybe the team should invest in switching his Tylenol bottle with some Prozac.
Whoa, scary thought.
"That didn't go too well," Charlie complains as we all enter his room. After all, it's time to party now. (Coach isn't going to like that much.)
"Sure it did." Portman grins. "We thrashed them!"
"But we got caught."
"So? They did too," Ken points out.
Charlie looks ready to protest again, so I throw a handful of popcorn at him. A food fight that probably passes for a party ensues, until Coach opens the door at 7 a.m. and yells at us that we're leaving in two hours and he doesn't care that we stayed awake all night, but we've kept him up too. Oops.
Just to annoy him, we decide we should go to sleep now.